People who service automobiles use joint press kits to install and remove joints, such as press-in ball joints and universal joints, of vehicle suspensions. A joint press kit often includes several adapters. The adapters typically fall into two categories. “Push” adapters bear against joints to drive them in a particular direction, e.g. into or out of a vehicle suspension, while “receiver” adapters bear against the vehicle suspension and receive a joint as it is pushed. Thus, the push adapter and the receive adapter cooperate to force the joint either into or out of a vehicle suspension.
Adapters are typically made to service a particular type of joint. The size and the shape of an adapter are tailored to the characteristics of the joint that it is meant to service. For example, a narrow ball joint requires a correspondingly narrow push adapter and can operate effectively with a wide number of receive adapters provided they are wider than the joint. There are many different sizes and shapes of ball joints. Accordingly, for a joint press kit to provide comprehensive coverage, it must include a correspondingly large number of adapters.
This presents a problem, however, because as the number of ball joint types increase, the cost of providing a larger number of adapters becomes prohibitive from a cost, time, and storage standpoint. Further, despite having a large number of adapters, the press kit might still not cover all the possible ball joints. Accordingly, what is needed is a joint press kit in which the number of adapters is optimized to provide the broadest possible coverage of the ball joints on the market.
A second difficulty with joint press kits is they are not adaptable for use in a wide variety of vehicles. One make of vehicle may require installation of an upper ball joint by providing downward force, whereas another vehicle may require upward force. Therefore, what is needed is a joint press kit that may be used in many different configurations.
A third difficulty with joint press kits is they do not provide an accommodation for the grease fitting during the removal and installation of ball joints. The grease fitting is located on the side opposite the stem side of a ball joint. The grease fitting can not be present during installation and removal operations because it will interfere with the operation of the joint press. Thus, prior to removal of a ball joint, the grease fitting must be removed. Further, during installation of a ball joint, the grease fitting can only be added after the ball joint is securely placed in the suspension. These operations are often difficult to perform. Accordingly, there is a need for a joint press that allows a user to install or remove a ball joint while the grease fitting is in place.
A fourth difficulty with joint press kits is that the adapters do not always attach to the press easily or effectively. For example, if a kit requires that the adapters be screwed onto the pressure screw, this consumes valuable time. On the other hand, if the adapters can attach to the pressure screw quickly, they might not be effectively secured. Therefore, what is needed is a device for efficiently and effectively attaching ball joint adapters to the press.
A fifth problem with ball joint kits relates to the length of the adapters. Often, it may be desirable to use an adapter having a particular width to perform a removal or an installation operation. Yet, if the adapter is not long enough to bear against the vehicle suspension it is unusable. Therefore, what is needed is an adapter extension to impart usefulness to otherwise unusable adapters.